Michael Vick’s Pit Bulls

Today I read that 22 of the 47 pit bulls seized from Michael Vick’s Surry County property have been relocated to Utah.

Each dog, in its own crate, was loaded onto a plane at Richmond International Airport and arrived at the Best Friends Animal Society’s 33,000-acre no-kill sanctuary in Kanab, Utah.

A spokesman for Best Friends said, “The one thing about these dogs that’s different is they can’t be put in group living situations like most of our dogs. So we’ve been spending the last few weeks clearing out some new areas where these dogs can have individual runs. They have indoor-outdoor access. They’re going to have a really nice home.”

I actually wondered if any of these dogs were going to make it. Assuming they were raised to fight, how many one-dog homes are going to come forward to adopt dogs like this? I suspect many of them are going to have a permanent home at the shelter in Utah.

I guess it’s still an improvement.

Of course, being a dog owner, and very “doggy” my whole life, I’ve witnessed a number of dog fights, although never quite in the spirit of competition that Michael Vick enjoyed. Dog fights, while mostly noise, are pretty scary. Snarling, thrashing, teeth, slobber. I don’t get why you would intentionally pit (no pun intended) one dog against another. I just chalk it up to that whole gladiator mentality. Ya know, a little farther down on the evolutionary scale.

I’d have liked to see a jury made up of veterniarians who have had to treat bite wounds.

Or have the judge be the owner of a pit bull. Someone like my perpetually angry friend Kimmy with her dog Pooh Bear, who used to sit on the couch together watching Jerry Springer.

Sic ’em.

An animal-care adviser at Best Friends added, “I’d like to see all these dogs get into homes and live happily ever after, on couches and sleeping in beds at night. That’s what we work for.”

Yes. Here’s to a better life for those Pits. And kudos to the people at Best Friends.